Taoists

"兵者，國之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。"

"兵者，詭道也。故能而示之不能，用而示之不用，近而示之遠，遠而示之近，"

"實而備之，強而避之，怒而撓之，卑而驕之，佚而勞之，親而離之，出其不意，攻其不備。"

"夫未戰而廟算勝者，得算多也；未戰而廟算不勝者，得算少也。"

"將聽吾計，用之必勝，留之；將不聽吾計，用之必敗，去之；"

"近於師者貴賣，貴賣則百姓財竭"

"兵久而國利者，未之有也。"

"知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆"

"故用兵之法，十則圍之，五則攻之，倍則分之， 敵則能戰之，少則能守之，不若則能避之。"

"是故百戰百勝，非善之善者也；不戰而屈人之兵，善之善者也。"

"古之所善戰者，勝於易勝者也。"

"知可戰與不可戰者勝。"

"凡用兵之法，全國爲上；破國次之；全軍爲上，破軍次之；全旅爲上，破旅次之；全卒爲上，破卒次之；全伍爲上，破伍次之。"

"昔之善戰者，先爲不可勝，以待敵之可勝，不可勝在己，可勝在敵。故善戰者，能爲不可勝，不能使敵必可勝。故曰：勝可知，而不可爲。"

"見勝不過衆人之所識，非善之善者也。"

"是故勝兵先勝而後求戰，敗兵先戰而後求勝。"

"微乎微乎，至於無形；神乎神乎，至於無聲；故能為敵之司命。"

"人皆知我所以勝之形，而莫知吾所以制勝之形。"

"故形兵之極，至於無形，無形，則深間不能窺，上智不能謀。"

"故善戰者，至人而不至於人。"

"故敵逸能勞之，飽能飢之，安能動之。出其所不趨，趨其所不意。"

"不遇敵者，必戰無不勝，但每次交鋒，終必敗北。"

"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain."

"故其疾如風，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不動如山，難知如陰，動如雷霆。"

"故用兵之法，無恃其不來，恃吾有以待之；無恃其不攻，恃吾有所不可攻也。"

"數賞者，窘也；數罰者，困也；"

"In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power."

"令素行以敎其民，則民服。令不素行以敎其民，則民不服。令素行者，與民相得也。"

"將弱不嚴，敎道不明，將之過也。"

"故戰道必勝，主曰無戰，必戰可也；戰道不勝，主曰必戰，無戰可也；"

"進不邀功，退不避罪，唯人是保，而利合於主，國之寶也。"

"視卒如愛子，故可與之俱死。"

"吾士無余財，非惡貨也。無余命，非惡壽也。"

"兵之情主速，乘敵所不及，由不虞之途，攻其所不備也。"

"施無法之賞，懸無政之令。犯三軍之眾，若使一人。"

"非利不動，非得不用，非危不戰。主不可以怒而興師，將不可以慍而致戰；合于利而動，不合于利而止。怒可以復喜，慍可以復悅，亡國不可以復存，死者不可以復生。故明君慎之，良將警之，此安國全軍之道也。"

"敵間之來間我者，因而利之，導而捨之，故反間可得而用也；"

"故明君賢將，所以動而勝人，成功出於衆者，先知也。"

"故三軍之事，莫親於間，賞莫厚於間，事莫密於間"

"此兵之要，三軍之所恃而動也。"

"Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across."

"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate."

"Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price."

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

"The true objective of war is peace."

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

"In peace, prepare for war. In war, prepare for peace."

"Fear is the true enemy, the only enemy."

"吳王曰：「將軍罷休就舍，寡人不願下觀。」孫子曰：「王徒好其言，不能用其實。」於是闔廬知孫子能用兵，卒以為將。西破彊楚，入郢，北威齊晉，顯名諸侯，孫子與有力焉。"

"諸將效首虜，（休）畢賀，因問信曰：「兵法右倍山陵，前左水澤，今者將軍令臣等反背水陳，曰破趙會食，臣等不服。然竟以勝，此何術也？」信曰：「此在兵法，顧諸君不察耳。兵法不曰『陷之死地而後生，置之亡地而後存』？且信非得素拊循士大夫也，此所謂『驅市人而戰之』，其勢非置之死地，使人人自為戰；今予之生地，皆走，寧尚可得而用之乎！」諸將皆服曰：「善。非臣所及也。」"

"Sun Tzu’s success teaches us that a successful general is one who fully calculates his approach and plans to fight in a battle. However, the average reader is not able to identify Sun Tzu’s teachings on a deeper or philosophical level. This is my reason for writing and exegeses on the Art of War."

"It seems to me that The Art of War codifies the principles of kung fu, the martial arts: to co-operate with the enemy, to prevent all-out war when possible. I remember reading a lot of pages devoted to fighting with fire, and burning down cities. Devotion to tactics rather than ethics. I have a figurine of Gwan Goong, god of war and literature, reading a book. That book is The Art of War."

"By contrast, classical China produced many great generals, fought many wars and conquered many peoples but did not elevate military values above civilian. (It helped, perhaps, that the scholars rather than the military wrote the histories.) Fighting was not held up as something admirable but rather as the result of a breakdown in order and propriety. There is no equivalent of the Iliad in Chinese literature and the heroes held up for the young to emulate were the great bureaucrats and wise rulers who maintained the peace. Early on Chinese thinkers such as Confucius and the great strategist Sunzi (also known in the transliteration Sun Tzu) stressed that the state’s authority rested on its virtue as well as on its ability to use force. And for Sunzi, the greatest general was the one who could win a war, through manoeuvre or trickery, without fighting a battle. Prestige in Chinese society came rather from being a scholar, poet or painter; and from the Tang dynasty onwards the examination system to enter the imperial civil service was the favoured path for fame and prestige. Successful generals were sometimes awarded a scholar’s rank and gown as a mark of particular favour where many European societies would have given military decorations to meritorious civilians."

"In the famous Chinese treatise The Art of War, Sunzi laid down precepts which succeeding generations studied carefully, among them the famous ‘Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat’ and ‘He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.’ He also had specific advice, with lists of key factors, situations or types of actions, on the various phases of war, from making the plans to choosing the right terrain to fight. From the Qin Emperor to Mao Zedong, The Art of War has provided leaders throughout China and Asia with guidelines for how to win a war. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of Vietnam’s victories against the French in the 1950s and the Americans a decade later, was an admirer, as are the Western business people who have flocked to buy The Complete Sun Tzu for Business Success: Use the Classic Rules of The Art of War to Win the Battle for Customers and Conquer the Competition or The Art of War for Women: Sun Tzu’s Ancient Strategies and Wisdom for Winning at Work. Perhaps they like his assertion that ‘All warfare is based on deception’ or enjoy his passages on the importance of the strong leader for victory, and it must help that The Art of War itself is short and consists of pithy maxims."

"The one thing missing from The Art of War is love, ... any sense of altruism, any sense of loving your neighbor. It's just a[bout] how to take advantage of your neighbor, how to triumph over your neighbor, how to manipulate your neighbor. I'm sorry... It's a very nasty book. How to use your spies — that chapter thirteen on spies — is chilling. The whole book — of course it's very clever, and of course a lot of it is very true, and of course we can go through life treating people in that way if you want to, but I don't happen to believe that's the best way to go. ... The Lúnyǔ [Analects of Confucius] is a superior book to Sūnzi bīngfǎ [The Art of War] because the Lúnyǔ talks about morality, talks about caring for your fellow human being; after all, the whole idea of ren ... doesn't come in Sūnzi bīngfǎ at all. Sūnzi bīngfǎ is: how to use your friends and neighbors in order to get the better of them. That doesn't make me feel good. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, and I believe in being nice to people whenever I can. ... You don't go out of your way like Sun Tzu to manipulate everybody including your friends. For me, Sūnzi bīngfǎ is the dark side of Chinese culture. It's the dark side. And, I know it's there. And there's a dark side to Western culture too. And, therefore, it's important to be aware of it, but not to be corrupted by it. Not to be polluted by it. Because it is a very powerfully-polluting little book. Very nasty little book. Let's not pretend otherwise."

"When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun."

"Now one rather annoying thing about scholars is that they are always using Big Words that some of us can't understand...and one sometimes gets the impression that those intimidating words are there to keep us from understanding. That way, the scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something. After all, from the scholarly point of view, it's practically a crime not to know everything."

"Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something more, and that Something More is what life is really all about."

"Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with."

"Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, there would be more time available to us now than ever before in history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time than even a few years ago. It's really great fun to go someplace where there are no timesaving devices because, when you do, you find that you have lots of time. Elsewhere, you're too busy working to pay for machines to save you time so you won't have to work so hard."

"The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days later, we try again and find that the same thing has happened. Each time the goal is reached, it becomes Not So Much Fun, and we're off to reach the next one, then the next one, then the next."

"What could we call the moment before we begin to eat the honey? Some would call it anticipation, but we think it's more than that. We would call it awareness. It's when we become happy and realize it, if only for an instant. By Enjoying the Process, we can stretch that awareness out so that it's no longer a moment, but covers the whole thing. Then we can have a lot of fun. Just like Pooh."

"In order to take control of our lives and accomplish something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to Believe. We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us."

"Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you've got. Do you want to be really miserable? You can begin by being discontented."

"Abstract cleverness of the mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, the Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and learn to value wisdom and contentment. These are things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on this earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it were possible for us to do so."

"There is something in each of us that wants us to be unhappy. It creates in our imaginations problems that don't exist - quite often causing them to be true. It exaggerates problems that are already there. It reinforces low self-esteem and lack of respect for others. It destroys pride in workmanship, order, and cleanliness. It turns meetings into Confrontations, expectations into Dread, opportunities into Danger, stepping stones into Stumbling Blocks. It can be seen at work in grimaces and frowns, which pull the muscles of the face forward and down, speeding the aging process. It contaminates the mind behind the face with its negative energy and spreads outward, like a disease. And then it comes back, projected and reflected by other unhappy minds and faces. And on it goes."

"Eeyores are Realists, they say. But reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has."

"Without difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves - about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress for humanity. But what matters about problems is what one does with them. Eeyores don't overcome problems. No, it's the other way around."

"In reality, heroes are heroic because they, despite their weaknesses - and sometimes because of them - do great things. If they were perfect, they wouldn't be here in earth's classroom."

"When a stream comes to some stones in its path, it doesn't struggle to remove them, or fight against them, or think about them. It just goes around them. And as it does, it sings. Water responds to What's There with effortless action."

"What can be just as hard to see as problems-in-the-making is that a good many "problems" aren't really problems to begin with. People who don't see situations for what they are often struggle against difficulties that aren't there and create difficulties in the process. Or turn small difficulties into large ones."

"Transforming negative into positive, you work with whatever comes your way. If others throw bricks at you, build a house. If they throw tomatoes, start a vegetable stand. You can often change a situation simply by changing your attitude toward it."

"The Yellow Emperor had sex with twelve hundred women and ascended as an Immortal."

"Those, however, who do not emit in intercourse and in a day and a night have relations with several tens (of women) without losing their semen, completely cure all ailments and daily are benefited in longevity."

"Before one is ready to have sex with a partner, he must practice Taoist physiological alchemy. He must train his breathing for a hundred days. His breathing should become as smooth and well-balanced as possible."